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From tomorrow's featured article

"Chinese character" written in traditional (left) and simplified (right) forms

Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions influenced by Chinese culture. Over more than three millennia, the function, style, and means of writing characters have changed greatly. Unlike letters in alphabets that directly reflect the sounds of speech, Chinese characters generally represent morphemes—the units of meaning in a language—often encoding aspects of pronunciation as well as meaning. Writing all of a language's frequently used vocabulary requires 2000–3000 characters; as of 2024^[update], nearly 100000 have been identified and included in The Unicode Standard. Characters are composed of strokes written in a fixed order. Historically, methods of writing characters include inscribing stone, bone, or bronze; brushing ink onto silk, bamboo, or paper; and printing with woodblocks or moveable type. More recent technologies using Chinese characters include telegraph codes and typewriters, as well as input methods and text encodings on computers. (Full article...)

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Bust of a Chinese Gentleman

... that a bust of a Chinese gentleman (pictured) is not based on any actual subject?
... that a 15-second commercial for a streaming service has been blamed for causing arguments and domestic violence?
... that Darko Pešić ran the 100-metre race at the 2024 Summer Olympics with a broken foot?
... that the chimney in a work by Herman Melville has been described as a "a bastion of phallic, assertive, and aggressive masculinity"?
... that Robert Brodribb Hammond established the Sydney suburb of Hammondville to house families made homeless by the Great Depression?
... that fake Buddhist monks scam tourists out of money to build non-existent temples?
... that Lou Romanoli ran a semi-pro baseball team whose attendances sometimes exceeded that of a nearby MLB team?
... that an Antiguan man who escaped from custody in Canada is suspected of stealing a yacht and sailing it directly into Hurricane Larry?
... that junior archaeologists used to ask John Papadimitriou to walk over their sites for good luck?

In the news (For today)

Nicușor Dan

Author Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi win the International Booker Prize for Heart Lamp: Selected Stories.
Nicușor Dan (pictured) is elected as president of Romania.
In the Portuguese legislative election, the Democratic Alliance wins the most seats in parliament.
Austria, represented by JJ with the song "Wasted Love", wins the Eurovision Song Contest.
In the Philippines, the Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas wins the most seats in the Senate election, while Lakas–CMD, one of its component parties, wins the most seats in the House elections.

On the next day

May 24: Aldersgate Day (Methodism)

Eric XIV of Sweden

1567 – The mentally ill King Erik XIV of Sweden (pictured) and his guards murdered five incarcerated nobles, including some members of the influential Sture family.
1689 – The Act of Toleration became law, granting freedom of worship to English nonconformists under certain circumstances, but deliberately excluding Catholics.
1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 began, with battles beginning in County Kildare and fighting later spreading across the country.
1963 – United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy met with African American author James Baldwin in an unsuccessful attempt to improve race relations.
2014 – A gunman involved in Islamic extremism opened fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing four people.

Robert Hues (d. 1632)
Philip Pearlstein (b. 1924)
Magnus Manske (b. 1974)
Stormé DeLarverie (d. 2014)

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Tomorrow's featured picture

Germanicus Julius Caesar (24 May 15 BC – 10 October AD 19) was an ancient Roman general and politician most famously known for his campaigns against Arminius in Germania. The son of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia Minor, Germanicus was born into an influential branch of the patrician gens Claudia. The agnomen Germanicus was added to his full name in 9 BC when it was posthumously awarded to his father in honor of his victories in Germania. In AD 4 he was adopted by his paternal uncle Tiberius, himself the stepson and heir of Germanicus' great-uncle Augustus; ten years later, Tiberius succeeded Augustus as Roman emperor. As a result of his adoption, Germanicus became an official member of the gens Julia, another prominent family, to which he was related on his mother's side. His connection to the Julii Caesares was further consolidated through a marriage between him and Agrippina the Elder, a granddaughter of Augustus. He was also the father of Caligula, the maternal grandfather of Nero, and the older brother of Claudius. This bust, depicting Germanicus in AD 4, is in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Sculpture credit: unknown; photographed by J. Paul Getty Museum

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